My Incomplete Manifesto for Growth
I almost gave up.
Things weren’t looking good for me over the last two years. Everything was a struggle — finances, career, personal hobbies, relationships, everything. By the time January 2022 rolled around, ragged and tired, I found myself faced with a very simple question, but utterly unable to answer it.
What brings you joy?
A fish out of water, I was stupefied. Then, inexplicably, burst into ugly tears.
“I don’t know,” was my answer. A giant, gaping question mark. Sharp wind whistling through a dark cavern.
The things that used to bring me joy had been complicated and muddled by adult conditioning. Most of my hobbies I had either tried to force into a successful, conventional career (and lost the joy by proxy) or dropped when it became clear to me that I wasn’t talented enough at them to pursue them in the same way. The things I ran to for refuge in my childhood — writing, art — had curdled, leaving me resentful.
As you may have guessed, I’m no longer as stuck in the mud as I was a few months ago. I got some help, really looked inward, and have come back around to recognizing that the things that once felt like they’d turned against me were still the things I loved. Creativity is a big ticket item for me; it makes me who I am. What lies ahead of me now is the same path that lies ahead of many a creative: how to put that into practice and live it.
I’ve used the principles of design in the past to try to improve my life (Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, in particular), but was reintroduced to how to use design to build a meaningful life through Ayse Birsel’s Design the Life You Love. This journal-cum-self-help guide was instrumental in helping me recognize my need for the creative arts. In it, she points also to design entrepreneur Bruce Mau’s “An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth,” a list of beliefs, statements, and goals that helped him ideate sustaining the creative life.
To commemorate my return to the creative life, here is my manifesto. You’ll notice I borrowed a few of Mau’s (he had a lot of excellent points), but, like his, this is simply a starting point, incomplete, and it might offer other tentative creatives out there a place to start thinking about how to live their life creatively, too.
Stop waiting for perfection.
Start doing, even if you’re not good at it, even if it sucks.
Do more than just call yourself an artist. Be one, too.
Make stuff, have creative habits, practice the craft.
Chase what feels good.
Look out for what feels somatically right. Chase what brings you joy, love, peace, and fulfillment.
Stop letting fear get in the way.
Trust yourself. Logic and pragmatism have their time and place.
Chaos is natural and inevitable.
Find the good in it and ride the waves — be the eye of the storm.
Don’t be cool.
Cool is conservative fear dressed in fast fashion. Be unique, be original, be weird; it’s more interesting.
Growth happens in the interstitial spaces.
A.K.A. “the waiting place.” What feels like slow movement might yield big results.
Take care of yourself first.
In the big ways and the small ways.